New homes sold fall 16.3% in Shanghai

Updated 2017-12-12 10:03:22Shanghai Daily

New home buying sentiment continued to decline in Shanghai last week despite a major rebound in supply, the latest market data suggested.

The area of new homes sold, excluding government-subsidized affordable housing, fell 16.3 percent to 71,000 square meters during the seven-day period ended Sunday, staying below the 100,000-square-meter threshold for the 10th consecutive week, Shanghai Centaline Property Consultants Co said in a report yesterday.

"Outlying Songjiang and Qingpu districts remained the two areas where weekly transactions reached 10,000 square meters though both of them suffered two-digit retreats from the previous week," Lu Wenxi, senior manager of research at Shanghai Centaline said. "Notably, Yangpu District joined old Jing'an and old Luwan to become the latest victim with nil sales due to extremely insufficient supply in downtown areas."

The average cost of new homes shed two percent to 48,761 yuan (US,353) per square meter.

Two of the 10 best-selling projects sold for above 100,000 yuan per square meter and seven sold at between 30,000 yuan and 40,000 yuan per square meter.

A development in remote Fengxian District emerged as the most sought-after project after selling 50 units, or 4,805 square meters, at an average price of 37,159 yuan per square meter. A villa project in Changning District which sold just two units totaling 1,164 square meters was No. 9 on the top 10 list.

Some 72,000 square meters of new homes spanning two projects were released locally last week, the most so far in the fourth quarter.

"New home transaction volume would probably remain below the 100,000-square-meter threshold during the last three weeks of 2017 amid continuously sluggish sentiment," Lu said. "Only 90 buyers showed up at the sales office of a project in Zhoukang, Pudong New Area, which recently launched 204 units into the market."